Laura Dunn

Laura Dunn started making documentaries in response to her undergraduate experience at Yale University. Through a chronicle of labor strikes on campus, THE SUBTEXT OF A YALE EDUCATION, examines the corporatization of higher education. She then returned to her birthplace to make GREEN, a sobering look at environmental racism along the Mississippi River petrochemical corridor, a.k.a. “Cancer Alley”. Other shorts include experimental films BABY, a personal take on population issues, and BECOME THE SKY, an ecological map of power in Texas.

Her first feature, THE UNFORESEEN, executive produced by Robert Redford and Terrence Malick, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, toured to festivals worldwide, and was broadcast nationally on the Sundance Channel and released theatrically in North America by Cinema Guild. Her second feature, LOOK & SEE: A PORTRAIT OF WENDELL BERRY, also executive produced by Robert Redford and Terrence Malick, screened at festivals worldwide including Sundance, Berlinale, and SXSW, was broadcast nationally on PBS’s “Independent Lens”, streamed on Netflix and toured to over 100 rural communities with support from the Sundance Creative Distribution Fund. Her third feature, ALL ILLUSIONS MUST BE BROKEN, contemporizes the work of American cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker whose nonfiction classic THE DENIAL OF DEATH won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974. It premiered at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and continues to tour to festivals and universities. Together, this trilogy of films explores the eclipse of nature by culture.

Education

B.A. American Studies, Yale University
M.F.A Film & Video Production, University of Texas at Austin

Specialization in Teaching

Fostering Interdisciplinary Connections -- Outer Banks Documentary Project (Coastal/Ocean Policy + Film), Wilmington: Then & Now (History + Film), Writing & Filming the Coast (Creative Writing + Film), Science Communications: The Art of Documentary (Center for Marine Science + Film)

Research Interests

Environmental Science, Technology & Culture, Southern Agrarianism, Theology, Women's Studies

Professional Service

Research Committee, College of Humanities, Social Sciences & the Arts, UNCW

Honors & Awards

Honors include a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship, Fulbright Fellowship, International Documentary Association Pare Lorentz Award, Student Academy Award, Yale Poynter Fellowship in Journalism, Yale Trumbull College Fine Arts Prize, Sundance Film Festival Fellowship, DC Environmental Film Festival “Beautiful Swimmers” Award, SXSW Special Jury Prize for Visual Design and the Film Independent Spirit Truer Than Fiction Prize. Other notable exhibitions include the Museum of Modern Art Documentary Fortnight, National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, Director’s Guild of America, PBS Indie Lens Pop-Up Tour (150 grassroots screenings), Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers and the Library of America.

UNCW awards include the FlowILM Faculty Collaborative Grant, SAIL (Seahawks Advancing Interdisciplinary Learning) Grant, CHSSA Start-Up Funding Award, CHSSA Research Grant, & CHSSA Teaching Grant.